Partially designable society. Partially designable systems. Embodied and practiced culture tends to resist design. I’m sure there are philosophers and social scientists that say this quite eloquently.
But opportunities are always presenting themselves for partial modifications.
I still need to read Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.
Funky Apple
A human named Dennis Tokarski sent to the A2B3 mailing list a link to the following article:
Earth’s Inconstant Magnetic Field
UPDATE: Ed Vielmetti added this link to a USGS movie of the moving magnetic field.
Northville Winery Crimson Dew
My brother Jon made the label for a new drink being produced by Northville Winery – which is housed in Parmenter’s Northville Cider Mill.
We recently had a bottle and it was surprisingly delicious. I’ll be having more I hope.
His longtime friend Rob helps run the winery, as well as the cider mill. They are also making a Blueberry one, but I’ve not tried it yet.
(all rights reserved on these images by Jon Cooney)
hole punch on the metra
Gji’s Sweet Shoppe
A new ice cream and candy shop has opened on the East side of Ann Arbor – on Washtenaw, East of Huron Parkway, sort of across from Arborland. We are very excited, as we needed a good ice cream shop for my family go walk to. They also have daily-made flavored popcorn and nostalgia candy. See the article in Arbor Wiki for details.
Homemade creeps
Every so often I play Desktop Tower Defense over at Kongregate. It’s a fun strategy game where you create a maze or 2D structures out of “towers” that little creatures go past. You try and stop the creatures with the different effects of the towers.. My daughter would watch me play, and one time she drew the creatures, called “creeps” from the game. 🙂
There’s also Bloons Tower Defense, which is fun.
The Magic Word
This comic has been on our fridge for years. We showed to Julianne a few years ago and afterward she would sometimes use this improved magic word when prompted for a “please”.
Double Trouble
Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble,
Something wicked this way comes.Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog.
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing.Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble,
Something wicked this way comes.In the cauldron boil and bake,
Fillet of a fenny snake.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf.Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.Something wicked this way comes.
Julianne and I have been singing this song from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban
Remembering Things
My children will give me “remembering things” when I leave the house in the morning. “Something to remember me by,” my daughter would say. Now it’s usually only my son who gives me a remembering thing.
down to the margins of the reeds and peer within
Dave Pollard, author at How to Save the World set some of Loren Eiseley‘s prose to verse.
a difficult re-entry
The nature of the human predicament
is how nature is to be reentered; how man,
the relatively unthinking and proud creator of the second world —
the world of culture —
may revivify and restore the first world
which cherished and brought him into being.For what, increasingly, is required of man
is that he pursue the paradox of return.Yet man does not wish to retrace his steps
down to the margins of the reeds and peer within,
lest by some magic he be permanently recaptured.Instead, men prefer to hide
in cities of their own devising.
– The Philosophy of Loren Eiseley, in Verse